CALLIGRAPHY

ByDrishti, Dhwani, Komal, Niyati & Sneha

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

of the degree of

BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTUREIn the school of

B.V.C.O.A

MUMBAI UNIVERSITY

JULY 30,2015

DECLARATION

We declare that this thesis is the outcome of our own research study undertaken under the guidance of Mrs. Ashwini Bapat , Asst. professor at Bharati Vidyapeeth college of Architecture,

Navi Mumbai.

It has not previously formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma, or certificate of this Institute or of any other

institute or university. I have duly acknowledged all the sources used by me in the preparation of this thesis.

Ms. Drishti GhoshMs. Dhwani KariaMs. Komal NandrekarMs. Niyati BhansaliMs. Sneha Coutinho

July 30, 2015.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We are really grateful because we managed to complete our Theory of Design (T.O.D.) assignment within the given time

by our lecturer Mrs. Ashwini Bapat

This assignment couldnt be completed without the effort and cooperation of our group members.

We also thank our lecturer of T.O.D , Mrs. Ashwini Bapat for the guidance and encouragement in finishing this assignment

and also for teaching us this course.

Last but not the least we would like to thank our family and friends for their constant source of inspiration.

PREFACE

Through this paper, we aim at focusing mainly on calligraphy with a wide perspective of studying its origin, its form, the

use of this art in olden times and in today’s age- its importance and the study of how it was lost and was revived

again due to technology.

Since ages, our ancestors have developed a script of writing through pictographical writings or languages in later times.

New languages and scripts have been formed from these pictographical writings and several cultures revolve around

these.

The art of calligraphy originated from mainly Islamic art and Chinese Art.

Calligraphy and Art have a very close relationship. Calligraphy in a way is a form of art.

The study of letters, their expressions, the pause and continuation of the same have been carefully studied in order

to have a specific study.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

i. Introduction

ii. Importance of calligraphy

iii. Specific summary

iv. Research worksa) Computer - Aided Calligraphyb) Visual Verification of Historical Chinese Calligraphy Works

v. Controversies revolving around calligraphy

vi. Aesthetic communication

vii. Strokes caused by tools

viii. Calligraphy as a personality analyst

ix. Conclusion

x. References

INTRODUCTION

Calligraphy is a visual art that makes use of linguistic signs to create an aesthetic experience that transcends or

complements the literal embodied meaning. 

Calligraphy may thus be seen as an extension of writing wherein the artist or author subjects the form of linguistic signs to

aesthetic modulation.

Numerous books have been written about calligraphy in general.

The limits of Calligraphy are difficult to clearly define. Any time we intentionally alter our writing in order to evoke meanings that lie outside the linguistic, we may be using a calligraphic

method.

Nevertheless, there are many instances of writing whose extra-linguistic, aesthetic qualities overtake the literal written meaning to the extent that the concrete meaning may be

partially or wholly obscured by the choice of increasingly abstracted visual forms.

IMPORTANCE OF CALLIGRAPHY

When we write, we're not only memorizing the letters on the paper but also the process and experience of shaping them.

Research shows that putting pen to paper can actually help improve your memory and improve brain function.

It has also been shown that children that learn to write by hand, find reading easier and have more advanced small motor

skills. 

In addition to all of the important neurological connection, writing by hand is a way of documenting our history.

We wouldn't know half the things we do about Marie Antoinette,

or Abraham Lincoln if it wasn't for their diaries, their correspondence, and letters of their acquaintances.

RESEARCH WORKS

Several authors have not only written books but also have written papers regarding this topic.

These include several debates on the topic that include both its positive as well as its negative points.

1) Computer - Aided Calligraphy: Where Write isn't Wrong

Writer:- George ThompsonSummary: we appear to have a compulsion to try to give computers creative powers. This is most clearly seen in the arts, where we can find examples of attempts to go beyond

using computers as tools that only assist in the creative process. Early computer art was very crude but computer hardware and software now offer facilities that creative

artists can exploit to the fullest. Building on early research into using the computer to generate

original letterforms, a computer-aided calligraphy process has been developed. A random algorithm generates variants of the letters of the original input calligraphic alphabets in a manner that is analogous to the variations in hand-produced work. By using appropriate inks and papers, the calligraphy

produced has an archival permanence.

The aim is not simply to replicate hand-produced script. It is argued that the system produces genuinely individual

creative calligraphy

2) Visual Verification of Historical Chinese Calligraphy Works

Writers:-Xiafen Zhang, Yueting Zhuang

AbstractThe problem of historical Chinese calligraphy verification is

previously investigated by experienced artists, whereas this paper proposes some objective measures to bear the problem

with evidences by analyzing the subtle discrepancies between the images of the suspicious and the genuine. First, features that characterize an individual calligrapher’s writing style are extracted and modeled. When a suspicious comes, it

is compared with the genuine in the reference database to detect problematic characters and to calculate total accepting probability. The efficiency of the algorithm is demonstrated

by a preliminary experiment with 13274 images of calligraphy character.

CONTROVERSIES REVOLVING AROUND CALLIGRAPHY

The controversy that ‘Calligraphy is not one of the fine arts’In the 15th year of Meiji period, Koyama Shoujou with his comments

o the beauty of calligraphy.

This controversy was triggered in the protest of the following: “Calligraphy is not one of fine arts”. In the Japanese calligraphy

until the end of Edo period, both beauty of language and beauty of handwriting were to be found in the strokes of the characters. The comments of Komaya didn’t really didn’t really explain the theory between actual circumstances. On the other hand, Okakura claimed that calligraphy had an intrinsic value that was independent of the meanings of language. He took in account Japanese cultural reality

that people ha not previously wanted visual autonomy in calligraphy.

The question that arises from this is that whether calligraphy can be considered a form of art? Since its is evolved from art throughout

the years. Or is it just a form of expression and mere ways of writing words?

It also aims at filling the gap between the questions, the controversies and their answers through the summary by displaying principal findings, results, organization of the content and the order of the

content also indicating direction or further research & the benefits of the current research

THE DEVELOPMENT OF WESTERN CALLIGRAPHY

Western calligraphy is recognizable by the use of the Latin script. The Latin alphabet appeared about 600 BC, in Rome, and by the first century[clarification needed] developed into Roman imperial capitals carved on stones, Rustic capitals painted on walls, and Roman cursive for daily use. In the

second and third centuries the uncial lettering style developed. all the books produced, in fact all the world’s knowledge of the time, was painstakingly written down by hand using ink and a

pen which had first of all to be made and then recut quite frequently.

The books of the Old and New Testament of the Bible, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf,

the romances of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere and the knights of the Round Table, and all the Greek and Latin texts

came down to us through the ages this way.It was no doubt in Roman times when the letters used by the Phoenicians and then the Greeks reached the height of beauty and proportion. Those on Trajan’s Column opposite the Forum in Rome, Italy, are strikingly beautiful. But similarly exquisite

letters can be seen on the remains of ancient Roman monuments throughout Europe, including the UK. This writing on bark, though, is very difficult to read, as the letters are not

well-formed and seem to merge into one another.To make important books, the letter-forms had to be grand and readable. Old and New Roman Cursive lettering was not grand and is not that easy to read, so harking back to the majesty of

those letters in stone, a writing style developed which is called Uncial. These letters, made with a pen which has a straight-cut

edge (broad-edge pen nib) are round and wide, taking up a great deal of space, and with decided thicks and thins to the

letters, made by the shape of the pen nib.

UNICALS

It was a lettering style which was slightly adapted by the early English. It truly was his work for God, opus dei, as his strong letter-forms of Half-

Uncial hold their own against the intricate interlace patterns in delicate colour combinations.

HALF-UNICAL

Another style of writing was used a little later in charters or for less important manuscripts such as letters, and this is called Insular

Minuscule, which, in its earlier forms, looks pointed and spiky. It was this style of writing which was used, in the ninth century, to ‘gloss’

biblical texts

INSULAR MINISCULE

Meanwhile, over on the continent, letter-forms were changing during the reign of the Emperor Charlemagne. He wanted a writing style which was easy to read and not too difficult to write; A minuscule script is not necessarily tiny (note it is minu- not mini-, that is minus [less

than], not small!), but it does have similar characteristics to those we would recognize in our handwriting today.

CAROLINE MINISCULE

Many great Bibles, using this Caroline Minuscule writing style, were produced at the scriptorium of the abbey of St Martin,

in Tours, France, such as the Grandval-Moutiers Bible, and it was not long before the writing crossed the Channel to

England. Here the forward slanting letter-forms were made more upright, the long ascenders and descenders shortened

and the letters made to look more grand.

GOTHIC BLACK LETTER

The writing is so strong, though, that it complements the rich colours made from precious pigments such as lapis lazuli and

cinnabar.At this point there were also writing styles which were used for

letters, records and charters, and alongside the rigid style of Gothic Black Letter ran Gothic Cursive or Secretary Hand,

which could be elevated in elegance and precision of form to be used in books, in which case it was called Bâtarde.

HUMAN MINISCULE

A delightfully light form of Caroline Minuscule was transformed into Humanistic Minuscule at this time, and later, a cursive

form was developed, which we know better as Italic.

ITALIC

This was the form used by engravers in copper, and they and writing masters of the time developed the Copperplate style of writing which uses a pointed nib. It was a style taught in

schools to those who were destined to be clerks in the British Empire, and they took this writing style throughout the world

in the nineteenth century.

CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY

Calligraphy, literally "beautiful writing," has been appreciated as an art form in many different cultures throughout the world,

but the stature of calligraphy in Chinese culture is unmatched. In China, from a very early period, calligraphy was considered not just a form of decorative art; rather, it

was viewed as the supreme visual art form, was more valued than painting and sculpture, and ranked alongside poetry as a

means of self-expression and cultivation. The earliest extant examples of Chinese writing are the

inscriptions that appear on oracle bones and on bronze vessels, the oldest of which date back to the Shang dynasty .

These early inscriptions were made on the surface of an oracle bone or a bronze mold with a sharp, pointed instrument. As a result of this process, the characters generally lack the kinds

of linear variation and other attributes considered prerequisites of true calligraphy. Those qualities began to

emerge very clearly during the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.), when Chinese artisans perfected the manufacture of the basic materials still used by calligraphers today: brush,

ink, paper, and inkstone.Although archaeological evidence confirms that brushes were

known in China at a much earlier date, it was during the Han period that their use became widespread.

The Chinese written script is made up of several thousand individual graphs. Each consists of an invariable group of

strokes executed in a set order. One of the truly unique features of calligraphy that results from these apparently

restrictive guidelines is that the viewer is able to mentally retrace, stroke by stroke, the exact steps by which the work

was made. The viewer also is able to observe extremely subtle nuances of execution-where a stroke was made swiftly or slowly, whether the brush was put to the paper with great

delicacy or force, and so on.

AESTHETIC COMMUNICATION

Decorative integration of a calligraphic imagetext with a wider pattern of arabesques and decoration often complicates

attempts to read its referential context.

But legibility may not be its primary communicative channel.Because calligraphy is writing we stress its relationship to the

language in which it operates.

But it may not be the language which is important to calligraphy, paradoxically it may be that this is the least important aspect.

As a formal and aesthetic composition, the presence of the script may not seek to display the sentiments expressed by the

words.

The aesthetic communication of calligraphy often plays with the possibilities implicit in the shapes of the letters and words

themselves.

In order to partake their baraka (spiritual power), written Quranic mushaf were often contemplated as visual icons

rather than read.In his analysis of Quran, Oleg Grabar notes the variety of

letter shapes, the vibrant colors of diacritic marks and the rich vegetal background.

These visual traits challenge simple legibility and highlight individual pages as objects of visual contemplation.

Grabar concludes that the manuscript provides a range of visual experiences which may have included the

experience of reading.Although a linguistic reading remains possible, it represents

only one point of entry into the visual world of the text.Arabic architectural inscriptions may operate

“iconographically” rather than textually.The composition, placement, or choice of a textual passage

often highlights a physical or material aspect of its surrounding, or it may elucidate architectural and spatial

associations that are not obvious otherwise.These observations underline two obvious and important facts

that one must take into account when studying decorative scriptures.

The first is that the signifying potential of the inscriptions depend upon the aesthetic variability.

The second is that this potential does not necessarily have a link with the textual content itself.

Islamic calligraphic imagetexts does not always operate as legible linguistic signs from which to extract a specific

meaning.They may reflect the rhythms and patterns of the Quran.

The may offer an object of visual contemplation.Or they may draw attention to a significant aspect of their

surroundings.As viewers interact with visual arrangements, they become

open to divine communication.Calligraphy emphasizes the intellectuality of this interaction.

As the display of the written signs, it explores visual design via the forms and characters of language.

If architectural calligraphic inscriptions remain indecipherable, they nevertheless convey an intellectual practice of

viewing beyond the “purely vision”.Written language engages the intellect, and visitors do not

simply dwell within a space or gaze upon its decoration, they “establish a mutual relationship with the very building

itself, at a meta-sensuous and intellectual level”.Similarly, by gazing upon complex image texts and arabesques, viewers merge with an object of attention in

intellectual and religious contemplation.Image texts operate as symbolic markers of spiritual discovery

and religious authority, and calligraphic displays offer an opening through which viewers may enter the

contemplation of a visual image or surrounding space..

Calligraphic art provides an opportunity of “self-abstraction”The interplay of decoration and textual content opens upon a

field of “visual tactility”.Viewers do not grasp the intention or meaning of an image,

they explore multiple visual planes and touch upon a variety of aesthetic and linguistic interpretations. As traces

of divine communication, calligraphic image texts confound simplistic interpretation.

Instead, they inspire an intellectual and spiritual attempt to decode them.

The diversity of hand-made fonts is virtually unlimited, it is achieved by using different tools, change in density, slope,

proportions, thickness, decorative nature of one and the same font.  

Calligraphy is an artistic domain in which the format and the significance of characters composed of dots and strokes through

brushes and ink.It is similar to abstract drawings

Dots and strokes gather to form characters, the characters combine to form phrases and collection of these phrases creates a work

of art at the movement of the brush.The different tools and brushes used can caused different effects

which gives rise to different styles and designs and hence simplifying it or complicating it.

It creates a beauty or rhythm in the text and this can have a huge impact on the readability of the font.

Arabic art influenced by Islamic philosophy tend to abstraction expressed in eternity.

The arabesque elements have neither beginning nor end and are abstract according to mathematic laws.

They are continous free flowing and ornamental in nature.The ornamentation tends to create the complexity in the font and

thus sometimes making it unreadable.Hence the font needs to be perfectly skilled and perfectly stroked

for readability

STROKES CAUSED BY TOOLS

Calligraphy has a characteristic that once it has been written it cant be fixed or written over.

The writings reflect the nature of the writer, his tendencies, his thoughts, his mental state etc ie. His entire personality can be

revealed in his writings.The writers general attitude about things in life as well as his

practicality can be portrayed through his writings.The font when it is free flowing shows that the writer is a free

thought person and has an open mind to thingsWhen the font is rigid and concise it shows the strict nature of

the writer.Also ornamental font tends to display the creativity of the writer

and the imagination levels.The ornamental calligraphy was used previously in the older

times before the 19th centuryThe present plastic mentality is not sophisticated enough to meet

the steep requirements of classical ornamented calligraphy.

CALLIGRAPHY AS A PERSONALITY ANALYST

CONCLUSION

Although static in its form, calligraphy is dynamic in its content. Motion, rhythm, amplitude, expression and at the same time,

deliberateness, meaningfulness, scrupulosity, modesty, accuracy and it attracts the audience and artists working in this sphere, the horizons of which each artist determines for

himself.The perception of ′beautiful calligraphy′ is not constant but ever

shiftingCalligraphy lives and develops; it turns from a classical field

into another formThe beauty of calligraphy lies in: the ability to write poetic or

metaphorical lines; to carefully draw calligraphic words and sounds delivering the meaning and the emotional content

of a text with the help of a specifically chosen or developed type style; to keep in one’s imagination a composition of the

whole page; not losing sight of the integrity of the final results

REFERENCES

• http://www.britannica.com/art/calligraphy

• http://www.beyondcalligraphy.com

• http://www.asianetworkexchange.org/index.php

• http://calligraphy-expo.com

• https://www.google.co.in/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=calligraphy%20tools%20and%20materials%20can%20cause%20it%20to%20becme%20unreadable

• http://www.jakeweidmann.com/blogs/blog/16647795-tools-of-the-trade-calligraphY

• Calligraphy: expression, style and usage (author: V.K.Sharma)